I love my Barnes & Noble NOOK! So much so that I am willing to follow their silly stylized rules of always capitalizing the word NOOK. Trust me, that’s love.

I dismissed e-readers for a long time; I loved (and still do) the feeling of a book, having books on bookshelves, shopping at my local used bookstore (I’ll miss you Two Buck Books!), and the list goes on. Over time I began to see more and more people with them on the train as I commuted to work, and was drawn to their size and convenience.

After doing my research I ultimately decided on the Barnes & Noble NOOK due to a few reasons, with the main reason being the ability to check out library books. I think that anyone considering buying an e-reader is going to at least consider the Amazon Kindle, and I did, but it lacks the library book option, and that was important to me.

I also liked the fact that NOOK is built on the Android OS, even though that really has no impact on the user experience. I’m an Android fanboy, that’s all there is to it.

Also worth mentioning is the lending feature available on the NOOK. Being able to share a book with a fellow NOOK reader is pretty great and maintains some of that social aspect of reading a good book.

The NOOKbook store has an always changing selection of free and discounted books, and after asking for B&N gift cards for Christmas I shouldn’t have to pay for a book for quite some time.

Now complete with my Flip Style Case (pictured above) and my Mighty Bright Clip-On Light, I enjoy reading in a way that I haven’t since my nerdy teen summers.

In less happy technological news, my beautiful 22″ LCD monitor burned up last week, hence the lack of blog updates. I am currently working on a 15″ widescreen Acer I bought tonight at Wal-Mart, it’s so tiny!

On a related note, is it terribly unethical to “rent” monitors and then return them once your real monitor is repaired, even if you despise the company? I’m tempted to do this, especially considering how snotty the Manager was with me when I asked her if I’d have any problems if the monitor was damaged, considering one corner of the box was crushed pretty badly.

They had offered me a 2 year service plan on my monitor which I declined, when did Wal-Mart start offering those anyway? I haven’t shopped there in a couple years. When I asked about the crushed corner of the box for some sort of reassurance that they’d take it back if it was damaged, she said “Well, that’s why those service plans are a good idea.” in a very condescending tone.

As though I need a service plan to take care of damage that happened before I purchased the product. Either way it wasn’t damaged and I have 15 days(or 30…or 45…she wasn’t sure, have I mentioned I hate Wal-Mart?) to return it.

I think I’ll be alright. My monitor may still be under warranty, if not, I believe they can have it sent off for repair. We shall see.

I’ve held off on this for a long time because of my undying support of Ron Paul. I held off until it was absolutely, positively 100% sure that he could not win the nomination. I gave considerable money to the campaign, I plastered my car with bumper stickers, signs and magnets:

I strongly agree with Ron Paul’s stance on the war and I also agree that it is not our place to police the world and tell other countries they must have a Democracy. That being said, I have always been torn over Ron Paul’s healthcare policy. I am absolutely, whole-heartedly for Universal Healthcare. There is absolutely no reason that some people should be able to live longer and healthier than others simply because they have the money to prevent and treat illness. There is no excuse…end of story.

I will be redoing my car with Obama paraphernalia, though probably not to the same extent. If you haven’t read his stances on the issues, please do.

Honesty, Integrity, Hope, Understanding…this country is dying, literally unfortunately, for these. We’ve got a historical chance to make it happen. Please consider it.

So I’ve decided to do posts on things I love, and add them to the Things I Love page. I figure this is a good way for everyone(my massive audience) to get to know me better and to make use of the “Page” function of WordPress.

So the first thing I love:

Oh, Firefox, what’s there to say that hasn’t already been said? Not that much. Just get Firefox, okay? The extensions and themes alone make it worth the jump from Internet Explorer. I cannot imagine not having all of my glorious extensions(13 at the time of this post). Just give it a try, you’ll love it.

The second thing I love:

So, yes, I live in Colorado but this is purely by my choice and initiative. I moved to Colorado in October of 2004. I am in love with this place. I started out in Fort Collins, then Denver, then Centennial and now I’m back in Denver. I see myself staying here for a while, I love having the city and nature all so close together. I think everyone should visit here at least once.